Death knight PvP guide
Mage Death knights are well equipped to handle any threat that a mage has to offer, but the opening sequence is key. The trump cards of this fight will be Anti-Magic Shell, Anti-Magic Shield, as well as Death Grip. Create a ghoul if you do not already have one and immediately send it after the mage. How the opening sequence is handled will determine the rest of the fight. Run towards the mage and plague strike to keep them still, followed up with an anti-magic shield if you are unholy spec. The first reaction of the mage will be to blink, which is why you ran towards them initially. Now it is time to use Death Grip, which will draw them back to you. Immediately use Chains of Ice and apply damage as your rotation allows. Apply spell interrupts like Mind Freeze and Strangulate as necessary. Once enough runic power is built, feel free to activate anti-magic shield. There is no bad time to use it since all their attacks are magic based. The rest of the fight should solve itself in your favor so long as you continue to damage. Paladin Death Knight Rogue Rogues are difficult to handle for any class. There is very little you can do if they get the upper hand early on. The best defense you have is your Ghoul. If you are unholy spec make sure to wait till your Ghoul has stunned the rogue before you use a trinket/ability to break their stun. Use Icy Touch right away to slow their attack speed and for the disease effect to prevent stealth. Shaman Warrior Warriors are only strong at melee combat, and the most common warrior will decide to close in on you with Charge to start the battle. You have two approaches to counter this: use Death Grip to pull him in and prevent a stun, or stay within a distance and cast Chains of Ice to prevent him from moving at normal speed. From there, you should figure out what type of warrior you're dealing with: arms, fury or protection? If protection, activate Frost Presence to raise your armor amount over his, whilst having the upper end with diseases and strikes. If fury, he can gain extra attack speed through Flurry if he scores a critical hit. You may want to watch out for racials like Berserking as well. Use Unholy Presence to raise your attack speed and movement speed as well. Arms warriors can reduce your healing through Mortal Strike; it is up to you to choose between Blood Presence for extra damage and healing yourself a little bit, or Forst Presence to prevent lots of damage coming from his burst DPS. Before he uses Demoralizing Shout on you, use Strangulate; it can also prevent you from being feared and then being stunned with Intercept if he decides not to heal himself. Whatever you do, keep getting behind him, and use all your strikes accordingly. Constantly refresh Plague Strike on him to keep up the DoT disease. Only use Frost Strike on a protection warrior whenever you have lots of Runic Power to spend. Scourge Strike to place another disease on him, and once you have maxed out your diseases on him, use Blood Strike for bonus damage. Saving Rune Strike for rogues may seem like a good idea, but if the Warrior dodges or parries once too often, use it. Buffs: you have one main buff, much like the Warrior his AP buff and at higher levels Commanding Shout to raise maximum health. Keep up your buff, which is Horn of Winter due to the increased strength and agility gained, useful to dodge their abilities. Warlock Hunter The key to fighting a Hunter is to keep him as close to you as possible, as this will render most of his moves completely useless. You can start off a fight by using Chains of Ice to slow him down, making it easy to get into his melee range. His first reaction will be to Disengage to distance himself from you, at which point you can pull him towards you again with Death Grip. Simply stack your Diseases on him, saving Frost Runes to refresh Chains of Ice, and dps away. It might be handy to use Icebound Fortitude, to prevent a Beast Mastery Hunter from using Intimidate or other possible stuns, and make any dps he can do while in your melee range truly negligible. You can use your Ghoul to occupy his pet, or add some extra dps on the Hunter. If you attack the hunter with your ghoul, remember to instruct it to attack him again if he feigns death or taunts it with his pet. If you are blood spec make sure to place Mark of Blood on their pet and try to summon your rune weapon as quickly as possible. If the hunter is Beast Mastery and uses Bestial Wrath there isn't much you can do while he kites you away. Druid Druids can be a tough fight for Death Knights, and much will depend on the skill of the druid you are fighting and their spec. A feral druid will likely shift to bear form to try to mitigate your high physical damage. He won't do high damage in this form, so use Blood Presence to heal yourself and keep your diseases up on him and try to hit him with attacks like Death Coil, Scourge Strike, Frost Strike, etc that aren't affected by armor. You should win the damage race. When the druid gets low he will try to heal himself, and preventing this is what will win you the match. Use Icebound Fortitude when he seems likely to heal to try to waste his Bash. If he tries to Cyclone you Mind Freeze to interrupt it and the fight will likely be yours before his Nature school recovers. More knowledgeable druids will use Nature's Grasp to root you and run away to heal, if so then a quick Anti-Magic Shell may waste his Nature's Grasp. If he succeeds in rooting you then Death Grip him back before he gets too far to give yourself some more time (he will simply run away again as you are still rooted, so it's not a permanent solution) and then Strangulate as he goes out of range to silence him and hope that this gives you time for the root to fade. Chains of Ice is a waste of runes as he will simply shift out of it. If the druid doesn't move far enough away before healing then wait until his heal is nearly done and use Death Grip or Strangulate to interrupt. A balance druid is more dangerous, as they will try to root you and nuke from range, while shifting out of Chains of Ice, preventing you from keeping them close to you. Try to interrupt their initial Entangling Roots, which will force them to blow their Nature's Grasp instead. If you have Runic Power then Anti-Magic Shell will prevent them from rooting you immediately and cause them serious problems. If (likely when) they succeed in rooting you then wait for them to run and start casting and use strangulate to silence them if they are still in range. Summon a ghoul and send it at them, then go Frost Presence and use Anti-Magic Zone and try to survive the onslaught. Do not use your Death Grip, ghoul stun or Icebound Fortitude unless the situation is dire, as they will be needed later. If the druid allows the root to fade or you can trinket out of it AND they already used their Nature's Grasp, then death grip them to you immediately. If they keep it refreshed or they still have Nature's Grasp to root you, then you will have to survive until the diminishing returns on roots prevent them from refreshing it, THEN Death Grip them to you. In either case immediately unload on them as quickly as possible in Unholy Presence. If they stand and nuke then use Mind Freeze only on Nature spells (NOT Starfire) as if you lock out their Arcane school they will be free to Cyclone you and run or heal while your Mind Freeze is on cooldown, and otherwise you should quickly gain ground your melee strikes are far more damaging than his spells. Unfortunately a smart druid will instead now Typhoon or Bash and use travel form or Dash to get away from you then root your ghoul and kite you until they can root you again. If he shifts to bear then use Icebound Fortitude to prevent you from being Bashed and then you pretty much have to hope that the several hits on their low armor form, followed by as many Death Coils as you have runic power for will kill them, as if they get away you are in trouble. A timely ghoul stun can be a big help at this point. Restoration druids will generally use the same tactics as balance druids to do damage to you. A restoration druid's nukes will be much less powerful so you have much more chance of surviving a full duration root and nuke. A restoration druid will have to nuke in low armor caster form instead of Moonkin, so a death grip followed by an Unholy Presence broadside may yield a quick kill for you at lower gear levels if they aren't quick or knowledgeable enough to shift to bear form to mitigate it. In any case your ghoul can do heavy damage to them while they nuke you. Nature's Swiftness will allow them to root or cyclone you instantly, and they will probably use it in place of Typhoon (which they won't have) to get away from you. If their primary aim is to heal themselves and others then you will have a hard job locking them down. Keep your ghoul on them and try to keep Blood Plague on them and everyone else you can to remove HoTs. Priest Category:Death knights Category:PvP Category:Tactics